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Israeli Foreign Minister Address The Concerns of Global Safety

Aired September 11, 2001 - 16:02 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: And now as we look at live pictures of New York City, where the smoke still billows from the location of the World Trade Center's buildings that were 100 stories high, now completely decimated. Smoke coming from those buildings six hours after the collapse of these twin towers.

To Atlanta, and to my colleague Joie Chen.

JOIE CHEN, CNN ANCHOR: Judy, we want to bring our viewers up to date. Of course, it's just after the top of the hour, and many people are probably tuning in at the top of the hour, trying to understand the events of the day. So, we want to bring you up to date on what we know, what we've been able to learn throughout the course of the day's events.

There were two airliners, just about 18 minutes this morning, which crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center at separate times, both planes apparently had been hijacked, one of them was an American Airline flight, the others is believed to have been a United Airlines aircraft.

Now, the buildings collapsed not long after the attacks, and as you see, the people in the streets below just were rained on with the debris from these collapsing buildings. There are tens of thousands of people in these buildings on any given day at the World Trade Center. But officials say they do not yet know how many people may have been killed, and they do not want to venture a guess until they know more, until they have more solid information about what is happening. Again, the efforts still to control the fire at the World Trade Center.

Now, about a half hour after the second attack in New York, an American Airline's jet crashed into the Pentagon building, you see it there. Again, the plane was believed to have been hijacked as well. The building has burned throughout the day as firefighters have worked, trying very hard to get the blaze under control. Parts of the Pentagon building, you see it there, have collapsed. The casualties there are expected to be high, but again, we don't have any firm numbers yet on that.

About the same time, a fourth plane was hijacked this morning, this one was believed to be a United flight from Newark, New Jersey, bound for San Francisco. Then it crashed in western Pennsylvania about 80 miles south southeast of Pittsburgh. Again, CNN continuing to follow up on all fronts.

We want to return now to New York, and from his rooftop vantage point, CNN's Aaron Brown. Aaron?

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Joie, thank you. Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, has been active in Israeli governments for as long as most of us can remember, and has witnessed more of these terrorist attacks than any of us should experience.

He joins us now to talk about this one. Good evening, sir. Thank you for joining us.

SHIMON PERES, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: Good evening. Thank you.

BROWN: Before, sir, we get to any of the specific questions, let me just ask you first, if I may, for a reaction to what has taken place here.

PERES: Our heart is with America, and our heart is with the thousands of families that have lost their children, their brothers, mothers. For Israel it is a day of mourning. We announced that tomorrow the whole nation will be mourning.

And I am sure that as bitter and painful the event is, the only one that can save humanity from this terrible danger is the United States of America. It was not attack only upon America, but an attack upon civilization, an attempt to introduce the wolves of jungle in our life, not to permit people to fly freely, to walk safely, to be assured at the places they live.

It is like a declaration of war, or an introduction of a terrible arm, and we have draw all the conclusions fully, uncompromisingly and right away.

BROWN: Sir, you have been a soldier, a leader of a country. You have been privy to some of the most detailed intelligence reports there are out there. Are you surprised by the sophistication that must have been at play to carry out these attacks?

PERES: It's an solid indication of the most evil kind. Only evil people can arrive to such a sophistication. And the measures must be radical as the evil itself.

I think what should be done is to identify every country that hosts or supports terror and declare those countries as terrorist countries. I think there must be call to all religious leaders, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, to condemn fully without an excuse all the suicidal vandals, suicidal person. We know there to kill others to kill themselves. It's against the basis of our lives, it's against the gospels of every believer.

And then again, we have to organizations ourselves globally because we are going over from a world of enemies, where you have had armies to face them, to a world of global dangers that we don't have neither a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) nor an army to stop. We have to we get ourselves organized properly, and fully, and immediately.

BROWN: Mr. Foreign Minister, I hope you will answer this, let me ask it anyway. Did the government of Israel have any intelligence prior, any indications prior, that something like this might happen?

PERES: Not specifically. We have had warnings, and there are all the time warnings. But we know, and all of us are aware of some of the address from where terror can origin.

But anyway, I don't have any specific information, and I wouldn't try to blame anybody without full knowledge.

BROWN: I understand that. And let me then just for the record ask the logical follow up, which is: Since the attacks themselves, has Israeli intelligence picked up any information that suggests who might be involved in this?

PERES: Any information we shall have, we shall hand over immediately to our American friends. And we also send right now in our plane with our rescue team, which is already on the way, whatever we shall be able to do or can do, in order to be of help. We shall do it full heatedly, without any reservations.

Commitment to say that today each of us feels American, like an American, with all the seriousness, all the pains, and all the determination.

BROWN: Sir, do you have any doubt in your mind that the root of this attack on the United States today, the root of it took place in the Middle East, that the events in the Middle East, the organizations in the Middle East, do you believe that to be the case?

PERES: I think we have to bring an end to conflict in the Middle East, but you know there were already acts of terrors in the United States disconnected from the Middle East, and there are many other places the same story.

We have to put an end to terror, because it is a danger to every person and every country, no matter where it is. So the reasons are important, but the attraction to use terror in order to kill, in order to threaten is existing everywhere. It is not connected to specific case or specific place.

BROWN: Sir, thank you. Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, a long time Israeli leader in any number of governments, joining us from Jerusalem tonight where it is a little bit after 11:00, about 10 minutes after 11:00.

Thank you, sir, for joining us.

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